Starters - My favourite ingredient
Michael Bedford, chef-patron, of the Michelin-starred pub the Trouble House, Tetbury, Gloucestershire, on……Flour.
"I think homemade bread is an essential in restaurants and we bake ours twice a day. We just bake white and brown rolls - you don't need to mess around with other types. If it's homemade and it's warm, people are happy with these two. A lot of restaurants buy-in loaves and slice them up, but to be honest, it's about as appealing as cardboard. "Good bread depends on the yeast you use and if you buy the bread from a baker who uses dried yeast, it often has that cake effect. When you break the bread apart, it crumbles and goes everywhere, it's more sponge than bread. "Most of all, it depends on the flour you use. We started to use a T45 flour from France, then went on to the T55, which is slightly coarser and stronger and which worked well.
We then used the T55 Organic, also from France, but recently moved on to the strongest you can buy in England, which is the Shipton Mill strong flour, produced by Duchy Farm, very close to our pub in Gloucestershire. It produces bread with a very good, slightly chewy texture. "We order three or four 36-kilo bags of white flour, which will keep us going for a couple of weeks, but they'll do 1-kilo bags if you want it. Shipton Mill is very traditional, the people there are very helpful and when you go there it's very organic to look at, too, with its water mill. "A lot of the top chefs and restaurants no longer make their own bread, but even with three of us in our small kitchen, it's not difficult, it's pretty straightforward.
The only problem is that if it goes wrong, or if you burn it, then you don't have bread for the day, but thankfully that hasn't happened yet. "We make the first batch about 7.30am, which is ready to roll out at 8.45am and we bake it at 10am. If there's a problem, we have time to make another batch. "We don't charge for our bread and the only downside is that people ask for more bread all the time. Of course, we let them have more, but it just means we have to make extra in the afternoon."
Supplier details: Shipton Mill, Long Newnton, near Tetbury, Gloucestershire
